HDScape: Antarctica Dreaming/Visions of the Sea

The Discs

Reviewing a title whose actual content is essentially designed to be ignored is a daunting task, but someone's got to do it, and, as DVD Times' resident HD fanatic, that someone, not entirely surprisingly, ended up being me. Generally speaking, you can usually tell that there is a dearth of quality titles available for a new format when studios are able not only to release but also sell discs that are essentially glorified screensavers, and the two HDScape titles up for review today are no exception. Designed to show off the prowess of full 1080-line high definition, Visions of the Sea and Antarctica Dreaming are, unsurprisingly, about underwater exploration and wildlife in the frozen south respectively, although I suspect that, for most people, the actual content will merely be a secondary concern, with technical quality being of paramount importance. That's not to say that many of the sights on display aren't impressive - there are many striking moments on offer - but, by and large, I suspect that those with a genuine interest in watching a nature documentary in high definition would be better served by the admittedly more expensive Planet Earth. The real question, when reviewing these discs, is whether or not they can be considered, to use a tired cliché, demo material. The answer, unfortunately, is "no".

Both discs are presented in full 1080-line resolution (whether it is 1080i or 1080p is unclear) with AVC encoding, and were shot with high definition cameras. Unfortunately, the cameras used don't appear to have been top of the range, as the footage on both discs generally lacks the crisp feel one would have expected, especially from material intended to show off the benefits of high definition, and demonstrates a significant amount of harsh ringing around high contrast areas. Vistas that should be breathtaking in their clarity look artifical, while some edges show what looks almost like dot crawl, which is hard to account for given that we are watching HD material. It is possible that this "tizzing" effect around edges is actually the remains of CCD noise from the video camera, the rest of which has been largely removed by the AVC compression. The quality of the compression is also not particularly good, with visible macro-blocking and a considerable amount of fine detail being eroded during camera movement. Given that flowing water (always a major compression bugbear) is particularly prevalent on both discs, the effect of the poor encoding on the material is often catastrophic. This is made all the more disappointing by the fact that neither disc is exactly crammed full of materials; to give some impression of what to expect, it's closer to the quality of a low bit rate HDTV broadcast than an optical disc. Broadly speaking, Visions of the Sea fares rather better in terms of encoding, and also suffers from less ringing than its Antarctic counterpart, but neither are discs that I would be particularly eager to pop into my HD DVD player in order to wow sceptics.


The audio for each disc is Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1, with the Antarctica Dreaming disc offering a choice of ambient sound effects and music or full-on documentary narration. I quickly tired of the narrator's monotone delivery and switched to the ambient effects, which I suspect will be the preferred option for most people, given that this is the sort of thing you'll dip in and out of rather than watching from beginning to end. Neither track is particularly enveloping, with a sparsity of surround action. Once again, though, I doubt that anyone watching these discs would be looking for sound that draws attention to itself. Visions of the Sea, meanwhile, has no narration, but offers a choice of two different musical accompaniments: "Subaqua Polonaise" in 5.1, and "Soothing Serenity" in 2.0.

No subtitles are provided on either disc.

Bonus content on Visions of the Sea is limited to a "repeat" option, arguably revealing the title's screensaver aspirations, and a 2-minute behind the scenes video, also presented in high definition, albeit of a lower quality than that of the main feature. Antarctica Dreaming is more generously supplemented, with a series of six additional mini-documentaries, focusing on specific subject matter souch as tourism, global warming and whaling. Each of these is between four and eight minutes in duration. Several additional choices are also provided on the disc's Extras menu, but this proves to be somewhat misleading as each is simply a single screen of static text, identifying the people behind the camera and the equipment used.

The menus are generally usable enoguh, although those for Antarctica Dreaming are quite poorly laid out, with some cheap, low resolution buttons and an "audio setup" button isolated from the rest of the menu choices, giving the impression of it having been thrown in at the last minute.

Finally, each disc also has a DVD flip side, replicating all the content from the HD DVD side in standard definition.

Overall

Of the two titles, Antarctica Dreaming is the most substantial, operating as a fully-fledged 83-minute documentary, whereas Visions of the Sea is essentially a series of undeniably visually arresting but ultimately unconnected images, which rapidly outstays its welcome if you attempt to engage with it for its full 60-minute duration. For those who find the subject matter interesting, these discs are likely to hold some appeal, but those considering buying them simply to act as demo material are advised that there are many better-looking titles on offer.